Ex-spurt.
I was an expert yesterday. Somebody asked me to come in and give people the benefit of my wisdom and I agreed. I turned up - early, like a good boy - and they handed me a lanyard. "Do you want me to put "writer" on it?" they said, and I agreed that perhaps they should, and then they told me that the toilet didn't work and that there were passwords and locked doors and lifts to overcome in order to have a piss and of course I wanted one. So I ended two floors up in an access toilet with the door open because I couldn't find the light-switch and I didn't want to piss on the floor.
So far so expert.
My friend Erika was there - herself an expert - and we started chatting while the other experts piled in and formed a weird exclusionary hub. It was as if Erika and I were concerned Native American businessmen wanting to talk about the doubtful provenance of the beads we'd just exchanged for Manhattan, and they had circled the wagons against our angry consumer arrows. They were mainly musicians or people who worked with musicians or people who write about music - why they would want to hear me talk about my love/hate affair with the semi-colon, or how I edit as I transcribe from my notebooks, before going back again to start the process again? That's not as interesting as a new pedal, or who has funding available, or what Van Morrison is like to have a pint with. (Bloody awful I imagine). So we sat there chatting.
I could have got up and introduced myself, of course. They looked quite friendly. And that's what this actually was - a mixer - we were supposed to be the movers and shakers meeting up like a grassroots creative initiative and sharing resources, strengthening one another, getting the weight of a collective and knowing that you are not alone - that there were other people out there being fierce and passionate and single-minded. It was a good idea. And a necessary one in a city like Belfast.
Unfortunately I'm shit at all that. You'll always find me in the kitchen and parties and in the disabled toilets at artistic get-togethers. I'm nearly fifty and I'm still odd in these situations and that's extraordinary - I have met literally thousands of people and have less than ten proper enemies active in the world. I must be okay at talking to people. People occasionally even pay me to do it. But these odd, artificial situations are always awkward and strange.
And then a really nice woman from the Art's Council approached me - she had just terrified someone else with that sort of no-nonsense pragmatism that certain people have and which has often terrified me in the past - but she was exactly who I need to talk to and she gave me some brilliant advice and I will be acting on it. The expert was experted upon and it was just what I needed.
Later still my friend Kate turned up and actually asked me about my writing process which I told her about in punishing detail and she had the decency to write down, as if they made sense and were useful. And maybe they were. Who knows? I'm a flipping expert, after all.
So far so expert.
My friend Erika was there - herself an expert - and we started chatting while the other experts piled in and formed a weird exclusionary hub. It was as if Erika and I were concerned Native American businessmen wanting to talk about the doubtful provenance of the beads we'd just exchanged for Manhattan, and they had circled the wagons against our angry consumer arrows. They were mainly musicians or people who worked with musicians or people who write about music - why they would want to hear me talk about my love/hate affair with the semi-colon, or how I edit as I transcribe from my notebooks, before going back again to start the process again? That's not as interesting as a new pedal, or who has funding available, or what Van Morrison is like to have a pint with. (Bloody awful I imagine). So we sat there chatting.
I could have got up and introduced myself, of course. They looked quite friendly. And that's what this actually was - a mixer - we were supposed to be the movers and shakers meeting up like a grassroots creative initiative and sharing resources, strengthening one another, getting the weight of a collective and knowing that you are not alone - that there were other people out there being fierce and passionate and single-minded. It was a good idea. And a necessary one in a city like Belfast.
Unfortunately I'm shit at all that. You'll always find me in the kitchen and parties and in the disabled toilets at artistic get-togethers. I'm nearly fifty and I'm still odd in these situations and that's extraordinary - I have met literally thousands of people and have less than ten proper enemies active in the world. I must be okay at talking to people. People occasionally even pay me to do it. But these odd, artificial situations are always awkward and strange.
And then a really nice woman from the Art's Council approached me - she had just terrified someone else with that sort of no-nonsense pragmatism that certain people have and which has often terrified me in the past - but she was exactly who I need to talk to and she gave me some brilliant advice and I will be acting on it. The expert was experted upon and it was just what I needed.
Later still my friend Kate turned up and actually asked me about my writing process which I told her about in punishing detail and she had the decency to write down, as if they made sense and were useful. And maybe they were. Who knows? I'm a flipping expert, after all.
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